Happiness or unhappiness...

By our thoughts we have prepared for ourselves the happiness or unhappiness we
experience.

Bowl of Saki, August 23, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Fighting with another makes war, but struggling with one's self brings peace.

All our possessions, all that we collect in life, all these things which we
shall have to leave one day are transitory; but that which we have created in
our thought, in our mind, that lives. A person thinks, 'Some day I should like
to build a factory.' At this time he has no money, no knowledge, no capability;
but a thought came, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' Then he thinks
of something else. Perhaps years pass, but that thought has been working
constantly through a thousand minds, and a thousand sources prepare for him that
which he once desired. If we could look back to all we have thought of at
different times, we would find that the line of fate or destiny, Kismet as it is
called in the East, is formed by our thought. Thoughts have prepared for us that
happiness or unhappiness which we experience. The whole of mysticism is founded
on this.

Joy, sorrow, love, all depend on our thought, on the activity of our mind. If we
are depressed, if we are in despair, it is still the work of our mind; our mind
has prepared that for us. If we are joyful and happy, and all things are
pleasant, that also has been prepared for us by our mind. It is only when our
mind works without control that unhappiness, sorrow, trouble, pain, or whatever
we experience comes without our intention. No one could wish to create hell for
himself; all would create heaven for themselves if they could; and yet how many
allow their minds to create these things for them, regardless of their own
intention.

'The present is the reflection of the past, and the future is the re-echo of the
present.' Destiny is not what is already made. Destiny is what we are making.
Very often fatalists think that we are in the hands of destiny, driven in
whatever direction in life destiny wills; but in point of fact we are the
masters of our destiny, especially from the moment we begin to realize this
fact. ... Man is responsible for his success and failure, for his rise and fall.
And it is man who brings these about either knowingly or unknowingly.